Purification of liquid steel with fine heterophases induced by explosive reaction in RH ladles

Inclusions in liquid steel were removed with fine dispersed heterophases induced by the explosive reaction of composite spheres in a RH ladle. The composite spheres were produced with a rotating plate granulator and fed into liquid steel at the end of RH refining for industrial tests. The results indicate that the inclusion removal technology is of low cost, high efficiency and easy to operate. It can obviously decrease non-metallic inclusions in liquid steel in about 10 min. In comparison with conventional methods, the number of oxide inclusions decreases to a lower level, the inclusion size becomes finer, the total oxygen in the as-cast slab can approach to 6 × 10^-6 and the production cost for per ton of steel can be reduced by 5 to 10 yuan RMB.